It is a happy faith, that the disembodied spirits of those whom we have loved and respected here are still, though invisible, watching over us with tender solicitude. Such a realization must be chastening in its influence, for who would do an unworthy deed, believing his every act visible to those eyes that he had delighted to please on earth? And yet, could we but realize it, there is always one eye, the Infinite and Supreme One, ever upon us, and should we not be equally sensitive in our doings beneath his ever present being?
It was the character of Komel's belief as to the spirits of the departed, that rendered her so calm and resigned, though the Sultan, in his blindness, attributed it to the forgetfulness engendered by time, and smiled to himself to think how quickly the fickle girl had forgotten one whose ardent devotion to her cost him his life. "She scarcely deserved this fidelity on his part," said the monarch, with a dark frown, as the memory of the gallant service the young Circassian had done him when he was beset by the Bedouins, flashed across his mind, rendering even his hardened spirit, for a moment, uneasy. "The difficulty, after all," he said to him himself, "is not so much to die for one we love, as to find one worthy of dying for." Shaking an extra dose of the powdered drug into the bowl of his pipe, the blue smoke curled away in tiny clouds above his head, while its narcotic effect soon lulled both mental and physical faculties into a state of dreamy insensibility.
What ardent spirits are to our countrymen, opium is in the East, except, perhaps that the powerful drug is more exalting in its stimulating influences, and less vile in its immediate effects; but no less severe is it to hurry those who indulge in such dissipation, with a broken constitution and ruined mental faculties to the grave.
Komel seemed gradually to settle down to a quiet and even half satisfied consciousness of her situation. True, she could not but often sigh for her home and parents, but with her more settled condition fresh spirits had come to her features, and renewed energies were depicted in every movement of her graceful and lovely form. Though constantly surrounded by a troop of slaves, chosen solely for their personal beauty and the charms that made them excel their sex generally, still she outshone them all, and that, too, without the simplest effort to do so; and yet for all this, so sweet was her native disposition, and so winning and gentle her spirit at all times, that they loved her still as at first, without one thought of envy or jealousy.
So far as her companions were concerned, therefore, she could hardly have been more happily situated than she was, and for their kindness she strove to manifest the kind, affectionate promptings that actuated her heart. She even joined them in many of their games and sports, though most of her time was passed alone, save that the idiot boy almost ever sought her out, and came and slept at her side, or seemed to do so, only too much delighted when she showed him any little, careful attention, and watching her when she did not observe him, with an intensity that seemed strange in one who was not supposed to be possessed of any actual reasoning powers, or indeed of much brains at all.
Having no mental occupation, the poor boy, who was, as far as his physical developments went, a specimen of rare youthful beauty and grace of form, employed a large portion of his time in such exercises and feats of agility as a sort of animal instinct might lead him to attempt, and thus Komel was often startled by suddenly beholding him dangling by his feet from some lofty cypress, swinging to and fro like a monkey; or to observe him turning a series of summersets, in a broad circle, with such incredible swiftness as to cause all distinctness of his form to be lost, producing a most singular and magical appearance. Then, perhaps, after forming a circle thus on the green sod he would suddenly plunge into its midst, coil himself up like a snail, or put his head between his feet, and thus go to sleep, or lie there as still as though he had been a stone, for hours at a time.
Thus, days and weeks passed on in the same routine of fairy-like scenes, and the Sultan's slaves counted not the time that brought to them but a never varying dull monotony of indolent luxuriance. They had no intellectual pursuits or tastes, and therefore were but sorry companions for one whose native intelligence was so prominent a trait in her character. Thus it was, therefore, having no one with whom she could truly and honestly sympathize, that Komel preferred to whisper her thoughts to the birds and flowers, and to fancy that Aphiz's spirit was near by, smiling upon her the while. What a strange and dreamy life the Circassian was passing in the Sultan's harem!
Komel, it is true, mourned for her liberty, and what caged bird is there that does not!